Better When We're Together
by DobbyRocksSocks
Summary: "I can't watch you walk away again, Claire. It's not fair; to either of us."


**Disclaimer - I own nothing you recognise. **

**Challenges listed at the bottom. **

**Word Count **\- 746

_\- New Fandom for me, so you know… be gentle :P _

* * *

**Better When We're Together **

* * *

"It wasn't me, I swear!" Owen said, holding his hands up as Claire rubbed at her forehead. She looked at him and smiled slightly.

"I know it wasn't. I gave the last of them to Zia. I'd say she earned them, wouldn't you?"

Owen opened the car door for her and she slid inside. He rounded the car and climbed into the driver's seat.

"Are you going to be okay, though?"

She shrugged. "Another day, another migraine. It's nothing new."

"We could stop somewhere and—"

"I just… want to get as far away from here as we possibly can. Please, Owen, just… drive."

He looked over his shoulder to check on Maisie, fast asleep in the back of the car, and nodded. "Okay. Okay, I can do that."

…

"How are you feeling?" he asked, a few hours later when they stopped for gas.

Maisie was still sleeping, but Claire climbed out of the passenger seat and sat on the hood of the car, stretching her legs out in front of her. Owen joined her when he'd finished inside the station, handing her a cold bottle of water.

"All of this was my fault," she murmured.

"Don't blame yourself," Owen said, shaking his head. "This had nothing to do with you."

"How can you say that? Eli said jump and I asked how high! I thought… I thought we were helping them. This is all just some bullshit cosmic joke, isn't it? It doesn't matter what I do, Owen, it always… it always goes badly."

"Hey," he said, stepping up between her knees to wrap his arms around her. "You tried your best and Claire, that's all any of us can do. We saved that little girl, Zia saved Blue. There was some good in there too, you know?"

"We basically kidnapped her, you know?"

"Hmm?"

"Maisie. People are going to look for her, right? I mean, Eli and Iris can't have been the only ones who knew about her, right?"

Owen shrugged, looking over Claire's shoulder to the back of the car, where he could just see the little girl's legs. "You know what she is, Claire. It's possible that they _were _the only people who knew about her."

Sighing, Claire let her head fall against Owen's chest for a moment. "What are we going to do?"

"Survive. It's what we seem to be good at, right?"

…

By unspoken agreement, they returned to Owen's home. Despite having slept most of the way, Maisie didn't protest when they fed her and then told her to get some rest in his guest room.

Owen silently handed Claire a beer, and she smiled at him. "I'd say we've earned these, wouldn't you?"

He nodded emphatically as he sat down beside her. "How's your leg?"

"Fine. It'll heal."

He smiled ruefully. "We probably should have taken you to the hospital, you know?"

She laughed, snorting ungracefully. "How was I going to explain that a _dinosaur _got me with it's claws, Owen? They'd have sectioned me in minutes."

He chuckled but sobered. "I imagine it's something they're going to have to get used to treating eventually. There's a T-Rex wandering around after all."

"Bold of you to think the T-Rex is going to let people limp away with a cut leg."

He nodded because… fair.

And then started laughing. When she frowned at him, he explained, "I'm just remembering that you _rode _that t-rex."

She giggled. "You did a somersault through its mouth!"

"Christ, I did, didn't I? We were… ridiculously lucky to live until now."

"I have no idea what we're supposed to do now."

"Sleep," Owen decided firmly, draining what was left in his bottle. "What we do now is sleep. And then… I guess we see what tomorrow brings."

Claire nodded. "Sounds like a good plan."

"I only have two rooms, so you can have my bedroom. I'll, uh, sleep out here," he nodded to the sofa.

She stared at him for a long moment before standing up and offering her hand for him to take. "I'm too tired to pretend that I don't want you to come with me," she admitted.

"Claire… I can't do this again. I can't have you and then watch you in the rear view mirror. It's not fair—on either of us."

"So don't leave me behind."

"Don't push me away."

"We do better when we're together, don't we?" she asked, suddenly uncertain.

"Yeah," he said, taking her hand. "Yeah, we do."

* * *

**Written for: **

Disney - D1. "It wasn't me, I swear."

Angel's Archive - 11. "Another day, another migraine."

365\. 235. Cosmic

1000\. 270. "Don't blame yourself - this had nothing to do with you."


End file.
